In a photolithography process, which is one of the manufacturing processes for microdevices such as semiconductor devices and liquid crystal display devices, an exposure apparatus that projection exposes a pattern formed on a mask onto a photosensitive substrate is used. This exposure apparatus has a mask stage that supports a mask and a substrate stage that supports a substrate, and it projection exposes the pattern of the mask onto the substrate via a projection optical system. While sequentially moving the mask stage and the substrate stage. In the manufacture of microdevices, due to higher densities of the devices, miniaturization of the pattern formed on the substrate is in demand. In order to respond to this need, higher resolutions for exposure apparatuses have been in demand. Liquid immersion methods that fill the optical path space of the exposure light between the projection optical system and the substrate with a liquid and perform exposure processing via the liquid, such as that disclosed in Patent Document 1 below, have been proposed as one means for realizing those higher resolutions.    Patent Document 1: PCT International Publication No. 99/49504